The Eternal Distance – Serial

Moved forward onto Oils for the first time. A self portrait made easier as I have been getting to know better what I am like OH WHAT are you like !!!

To accompany this first picture here is my first attempt for a serial story that I hope will develop into a book of sorts. Using this medium to help me form and develop the project.

CHAPTER ONE/part one – THE BROADENING

The shadows flickered; hypnotic figures, shapes and illusions fluttered like a magic lantern show. Rat-a-tat of rain spattered against the window. Jess started as a flash and clap thundered. Not usually afraid of challenges in the immediate, he was shaken at the speed with which the thunder followed the flash.

Jess got up, the room was pitch black, partly bright, then like being on the red carpet at the first night of a movie. Not that he had experienced this first hand of course, just the thought came to him, an attempt to humour a growing dread that he felt inside. He nervously and gently stepped towards his safety zone. An armchair, it had a kind of caring feel about it, like a history of old men drinking beer and smoking Senior Service; there was even a yellow nicotine stain on the ceiling above it, that lit up with a flash as Jess was thinking about it.

He should be asleep having made a point of going to bed early, he had to catch the train. This was a turning point for him to get out of bedsit land and see the world maybe, who knows he certainly didn’t. He’d always felt he had a purpose, a mission a destiny a reason to fulfil. Whatever he did though seemed to end in rejection, lack of approval, a stream of dark thoughts, loneliness and hopelessness.

He booked the train a month earlier, it cost less that way, reserved at a certain time. He had felt pleased with himself at finally getting organised enough not to be hammered with a massive credit card bill that went on forever. Think ahead, failing to plan is planning to fail. Now what would happen, the storm was really heavy, the train might never even go. Check the phone another nerve calming operation, connect with the world outside. Browse this and that see what the weather is doing, check the trains FB ……….

TRING TRING TRING TRING Jess started the alarm clock was going full blast. He climbed out of the chair and staggered towards it. He had strategically placed the retro clock on the far side of the flock wall papered dingy den, to get him out of bed. Some days he had spent all day in bed not wanting to face anything. He’d become quite a loner not really being able to connect with people because of what went on in his head he thought. Maybe it was just that he hadn’t tried in all honesty, because it was scary. He would feel uncomfortable talking to people and always felt like he really knew nothing. What is knowledge anyhow after all you can always find an answer if you want to.

Jess gradually made his way to the bathroom. He hadn’t looked at the time on the clock, but was aware that it was really windy. His front door was rattling which meant that the wind was gusting through the badly repaired window frame down the hallway. Something was strange when he entered his poky little bathroom. There was an atmosphere and feeling and the storm was no longer at the front of Jess’s mind. His shaving mirror looked like a sort of window and he couldn’t take his eyes off of it even if he had wanted to. He stepped close to his grubby little hand basin to get a closer look. Suddenly his head lost all sense of itself. He felt loose but still aware of being somewhere. Then he felt a sucking drawing like he was travelling through a straw, a funnel a narrowing. He was without form but had a sense of himself. He didn’t feel fear, he knew somehow this feeling, then splat. Splat he thought later was the only word that came close to the feeling. It was like a big paint brush had scooped him up and flung him down onto a bed that wasn’t his.